November 2002 Volume 83 Number 11 "serving the protectors"
The Iron Man cop
By Brett Williams

It is not police work that pushes Const Matt Stephens’ body beyond all limits of natural human endurance. That near deadly physical pressure comes from his second job – as a world-class triathlete.

As he ran the 42km marathon leg of his third gruelling Iron Man event, Matt Stephens vowed never to compete in another triathlon. It was January last year, and he had just cycled 180km – after a 3.8km swim – in the intense humidity of a 36-degree day in Langkawi, Malaysia.

Now, he could feel nothing but relentless, stabbing pain in his leg muscles, as an “all-over” fatigue consumed his entire body.

“I was vomiting quite a lot,” he remembers. “That’s the only time I’ve really vomited badly – in the run. And, on the bike, you could just feel the heat like a blanket around you. You could feel it bearing down on you.”

Some competitors would later describe the conditions as “far worse” than those of Hawaii, where the triathletes endure hot winds and race through lava fields.

“What makes it worse,” says Stephens, “is that, you think: ‘I’m absolutely stuffed, and I know I’ve got to run a marathon at the end of this (ride). God, how am I going to do that?’ “

But Stephens, then 29, did “do that”. He kept on running, even as some of his competitors collapsed around him. The part-time policeman and professional sportsman, who hates to lose, simply would not allow the excruciating pain of triathlon to beat him. He crossed the finish line in ninth place after nine-and-a-quarter hours.

Nonetheless, he had made that commitment to himself: no more triathlons. So, would he stick to it? “It’s amazing how quickly you forget,” he says. “The next day, as soon as you start feeling better, you think: ‘Oh, it wasn’t that bad. Hey, I’m going to do it again. I can do better than that’.”

And he was right. Seven months later, he finished eighth in Iron Man France; and when he returned to Malaysia in January this year, he shaved 30 minutes off his previous time there and finished in sixth place.

In Forster, NSW, where he competed in Iron Man Australia last April, Stephens finished sixth in eight hours, 41mins. But in August this year came his greatest result so far when, in Korea, he finished second in Iron Man Asia after eight hours, 53mins.

For agonizing pain, these later triathlons might have fallen slightly short of Stephens’ first Iron Man Malaysia, but each was punishing, nonetheless. Since April 2000, he has competed in seven Iron Man events, and in none has he ever succumbed to pain. So he has never had to face the humiliating tag, DNF (Did not finish).

“When it gets to the 30km mark on the run,” says Stephens, “the pain just seems to be all over. It’s beyond cramping. It’s a sharp, stabbing pain in your quads. I’ve never been stabbed with a knife, but I imagine that wouldn’t be dissimilar to what it’s like.”

Only after a race does Stephens ever allow himself to collapse. And, in most cases, he winds up on a saline drip to replace vital fluids. “You do black out,” he says, “you sort of fade in and out of consciousness. And, when you finally stop, your muscles can really cramp.”

Stephens’ fiancée and fellow police officer, Danielle Lowe, has endured the agony with him, but as a sideline supporter. Her heart races whenever she looks on; and watching him suffer so intensely makes her “feel terrible”.

She speaks of the pain she has seen in all the competitors’ faces, particularly during their hard-run marathons, which rarely exceed three hours. But Lowe finds these battles of the iron men more than just a source of concern. Each monumental struggle, she finds, has a power to uplift and inspire.

“In the last five minutes,” she says, “you don’t know where everyone is, and who’s overtaken whom.

“(Then) you see them come down the finishing chute, there are hundreds of people down the side and there’s music going. It’s an unbelievable atmosphere, and you’re just overwhelmed with emotion.

“It’s pretty exciting when you see someone you know and love coming down the finishing line and everyone’s cheering for them. It’s inspiring, but it is concerning.”

Today, Stephens stands ranked among the top 15 long-course triathletes in the world. He is the current SA Triathlete of the Year and the 1999 World Police and Fire Games triathlon champion. At the 2001 Australia and NZ Police and Fire Games, he won four gold medals.

But his foray into triathlon came soon after he started his police life at Fort Largs as a 20-year-old in 1991.

He had, at the time, just recovered from a broken collarbone he sustained on the football field for SANFL team, Woodville. Not prepared to risk his body further while he undertook police training, Stephens gave his football career away.

Unlike most new cadets, he was scarcely able to swim. But, as it was the trainees’ duty to be proficient in the pool, he soon learned. Then, in search of a new sport, and with his new-found swimming expertise, he looked to short-course triathlon.

He tried the less arduous event of a 1.5km swim, 40km ride and 10km run, and realized he “loved it”.

“I loved sport and I loved running,” he says. “Even at footy training, when the coach would say: ‘Right, we’re going for a road run’, and everyone would come up with reasons why they couldn’t do it, I always loved to do it.

“I’ve always loved competing, and (with triathlon) I enjoyed the fact that I was completely responsible for the result. Playing sport for fun, I’m not interested in. I figure that it’s fun to win.”

Through the rest of the 1990s, Stephens used leave from SAPOL to spend five winters in France, where he raced in short-course events for French triathlon clubs, Manosque and Salon de Provence. He describes these combined stints – which allowed him to compete in almost every country in Europe – as one “fantastic experience”.

By April 2000, he had switched to long-course triathlon and made his debut in Iron Man Australia. In that, he finished third in eight hours, 42mins.

For Stephens, long-course triathlon is “all-consuming”. He coaches himself and, for training, swims 20km, cycles 650km and runs 120km every week. From Stephens, the heavy demands of this regime require up to eight hours’ input per day.

From his Seaton home, he cycles to places as far away as Victor Harbor and Nuriootpa. And a typical Sunday morning for Stephens is a 35km run along the seafront to Outer Harbour and back.

He has to undergo regular “recovery massage”, stick to a diet high in carbohydrates and have as many early nights as he can. “It’s not always possible,” he says, “but sleep is your number one recovery tool.

“We (Danielle and I) are probably not as fanatical in our diet as people may think. It’s not all lentils and fruit and veg, just huge bowls of pasta, rice and chicken and lean meat.”

Among all the time-consuming demands of triathlon, Stephens tries to “fit in a bit of police work”. He now works part-time at Port Adelaide Enquiries, and knows the move he made away from full-time policing in 1998 was the right one.

Stephens insists that, as a full-time police officer, he simply “wouldn’t be able to do what I do”.

“It takes good time management,” he says. “With flexible rostering, I’ve been able to set my training programme, and then fit my work in where it fits best, rather than the other way around.”

The police workplace has, for Stephens, become something of a release from the pressures of triathlon. He relishes interaction with his fellow cops, and the chance that brings to live something other than his sport.

Although not high-profile, long-course triathlon remains a pro sport. So what financial reward does it bring Stephens? First across the line in an Iron Man event can expect prize money of around $A18,000. The prize pool pays decreasing amounts of money down through the top 10 place-getters.

Says Stephens: “You’re up for all your own expenses to get to the race and for accommodation. You’re not going to get rich out of it. Certainly, if you were doing it for the money, you probably wouldn’t do it.”

Stephens enjoys the support of three sponsors, but Lowe, his fiancée and manager, remains in search of more financial aid for him. She has so far found extra sponsorship “virtually impossible” to secure, even with Stephens’ impressive results and top-15 ranking. Funding also proved difficult to find for his next event, Iron Man Florida, on November 9.

Lowe, who knew nothing of triathlon before she met Stephens, has herself become a competitor in the last two years. Stephens suspects she would already rank among SA’s top 10 women triathletes.

“I had done a little bit of running,” she says, “but, until I met Matt, I had no idea what physical exhaustion was – no idea whatsoever.”

Stephens, now 31 and at his peak, plans to stay in professional triathlon for as long as he enjoys the sport, remains competitive and can afford to take part. On that basis, he might yet face 10 more years of torturous Iron Man events and training, as many stay competitive up to the age of 40.

Meanwhile, he would love to see his police colleagues embrace triathlon – as competitors. But he quickly explains that they need not, of course, participate at a professional level.

“You don’t have to be 35 hours a week training just to finish a triathlon,” he insists. “Just one hour a day of training would be enough for you to be able to finish an event.”

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